Sunday, November 27, 2016

Grandmother’s house had always been her safe place. There was
no shouting here, no clash of angry voices, and no sudden tummy pains that she
needed to keep to herself so as not to get their furious attention.
Grandmother’s house had a glorious old garden, with a clump of banana trees
that was perfect for hide and seek, and an old glasshouse full of plants that
nobody had looked after since her grandfather died, but somehow they kept on
living in that damp, quiet place, where the air was so heavy with the smell of
wet soil that it was always a little bit hard to breathe. She always expected
that one day magic would happen there, it was so different to the dry, dusty
back yard of her own house, where a just a few bushes clustered by the fence,
bushes with bright berries she had been warned never to eat.

And now she was going to grandmother’s house. She huddled in
the back seat, hard up against the window she could barely see through, and
tried to block out the sound of her father swearing at every other car on the
road. Her mother had refused to come; “No Michael, you take her. Your mother
never wants to see me anyway!” but she knew from the suitcase filled with her
stuff that had been thrown in the boot, that this time she would be staying for
a while. That made her happy. She thought of grandmother’s scones, with real
strawberry jam, and all the old story books that she was just learning to read,
and the nightlight shaped like a fish that grandmother left shining by her bed
all night long. It was so peaceful.

There was a soft rain falling as they arrived, and her father
impatiently chivvied her up the steps. He hated getting wet. But inside it
smelled of fresh baking and old roses, and she relaxed. She curled up in the
corner of the couch with Grandmother’s big fairy tale book, absorbed in the
pictures: the fairies, the princes, the dark forests, the castles and the
ridiculous frog with a crown on page 33. He always made her laugh.

The phrases from the adult conversation washed over her,
half-heard: messages from another country she had little interest in. “The
bitch!” (that was her father’s voice, followed by Grandmother’s hushing – she
hated rough language) There were a few minutes of subdued conversation, before
his voice was raised again. She was taking no interest, but some bits stuck in
her memory, to be replayed when she was older, and trying to make sense of it
all:

“Take no more!”

“More than flesh and blood can stand!”

“No, I’m done. But she’ll be safe here, look after her.”

“Send money when I can,”

Then he was gone, with a brief prickly good bye, and she was
sitting at the table with Grandmother, eating chocolate cake.

Friday, November 25, 2016

“We’ve done it!” There
was exultation in the words, and not a skerrick of guilt. She put down the axe, which would have to be
cleaned, of course, and looked at the blood on her hands. How had she managed
that? It had seemed such a clean kill.

Oh well, put it down to inexperience. After all, it wasn’t as
if she’d ever done it before, and it wasn’t exactly something you went round
practising, was it? But, before they did anything else, she would have to wash
her hands. She spared a passing thought for Lady Macbeth, who had been so upset
she couldn’t get her hands clean. All that emoting over bloodstains on her
hands! She had found Shakespeare ridiculously over-the-top at the best of
times, (such a waste when she could have been learning something more practical
at school!), but Lady Macbeth was the limit. Didn’t they have any soap in
ancient Scotland?

Ah, that was better! At least she had soap and running water.
Now the next job was to hide the evidence and dispose of the body. Geoff was
already straightening up the yard, just as they had planned, and she knew he
had been working on the wire for the last couple of days. It had to look like
it had been worn and pushed aside, it mustn’t look like they had cut it. People
had sharp eyes; it was really important to get the details right. That was how
you got away with things without anyone suspecting.

She glanced at the sky. Not long now till daylight – time to
keep moving along. Yes, even if it had made more mess, she was glad she had
used the axe. Strangulation, she believed, was the more usual method, but that
would have involved touching it, and she wasn’t sure she had the strength to
carry it through. Imagine the noise, the outcry, if something had gone wrong!
And the possibility of escape! No, there was far too much risk of discovery
that way. It was much better the way they had gone about it, even if Geoff,
always squeamish, had insisted on leaving the actual killing to her. And
MacGregor, infuriating, prying, lecturing neighbour that he was, wouldn’t be back
till Monday to make the discovery. And by then the evidence would be disposed
of and the trail gone cold.

Relief washed over her again. No more screaming in the middle
of the night, no more arguments with neighbours. And nobody would be able to
prove a thing. There would be gossip and speculation of course, but they could
easily add a few speculations of their own. Hadn’t they thought they’d seen a
tall man skulking around the laneways in the dusk? And couldn’t MacGregor use
the insurance money?

Now she just had to dispose of the body. It looked pathetic
lying there, as if it had been deflated. Was this sad, skinny specimen the one
who had been wrecking their night’s sleep for weeks and driven them to the
point of madness? Well, the feathers could be burnt, and as for the rest … She
picked up MacGregor’s rooster with one hand and eyed the sorry carcase. “I
think I’ll make chicken noodle soup,” she said.

Saturday, November 19, 2016

He tilled the ground, grumbling at the thorns and thistles.
His parents said it had not always been like that, and he more or less believed
them. But it was odd, just the same. After the tilling came the sowing, and
then the watching of the crop, and the dealing with the weeds. (Why had his
parents … ? Oh, never mind!) Finally it was time for the harvest, and all the hard
work of getting it gathered in. And all the while he watched his brother with
resentment. While he was labouring
bitterly over his crops, his brother would take out his flock, and sit and rest
all day. Sure he watched over them, but really, in this land that still carried
vague memories of Eden, it wasn’t that hard. The very weeds that Cain had to
battle with were food for Abel’s flocks. It simply wasn’t fair! He had no idea
that all the while he was diligently sowing his crops, another kind of seed had
taken root in his own soul.

Then the day came to make an offering to the Lord. He knew
his brother would willingly have given him from his own flock to make the
sacrifice (perhaps in exchange for a small portion from his crops), but he was
having none of it. He would not engage in that messy, blood-soaked business
(how demeaning!), and he would not be beholden to his spoilt brat of a younger
brother either. No, the work of his own hands was quite good enough to offer to
the Lord!

So he came, bearing a portion from his crop to make his
offering – not too large a portion, for that crop had cost him a lot of effort
and he was entitled to the fruit of his labours! His brother came also, bearing
the fat portions of some of the first born of his flock. He brought his
offering with a kind of gladness that Cain found very offensive. “Obviously it
cost him little effort, if he gives it away so easily,” he thought. “Things are
always easier for him.”

But then came the shock. The Lord favoured his brother’s
offering, but rejected his own. And Cain was furious, and the jealousy in his
heart proliferated faster than any seed he had ever sown in the ground. And the
Lord warned him that his anger was unjustified and that he was in grave danger
of committing a terrible wrong. But he was beyond listening, especially to a
god who seemed to favour his brother beyond himself. It was all Abel’s fault! And
in the secret places of his heart he cultivated that bitter crop, jealousy,
anger, resentment, and it came swiftly to fruition.

The day came when he asked his brother to walk with him in
the fields. Abel was eager to take this opportunity to sort things out with his
brother. But Cain had other ideas, and out there, with no human witness, he
killed his brother. He did not know that the very ground bore witness against
the murder of the innocent, and that he would be eating from a bitter crop all
the days of his life.

Monday, November 07, 2016

He was 75 years old when the call came to leave everything he
had known and follow the guidance of an invisible God to a place he did not
know, which would become his inheritance. He was to take his barren wife with
him, and somehow, though they were both already old, he would be the father of
a great nation. And through this absurd choice, which shocked his friends and
acquaintances into scornful laughter, he would somehow become a source of
blessing to all the nations of the earth (what did that even mean?). And so the
old man packed up his whole life and stepped forward into impossibility. By
faith he allowed his whole world to be turned upside down. And when, after the
long hard years of waiting, the child of promise was born to them, he was
willing, at the command of that same God, to lay down the life of that child,
though every promise he had been given was dependent on that child’s life.
Where did he find the strength? His eyes were fixed on another kingdom, a
kingdom which could never fail, whose builder and maker was the Lord.

Another time, another place, another man. This one was eighty
years old, and his life had become a bitter story of failure. It had all
started so well, with his life miraculously spared and his adoption into the
royal family of the very nation that had enslaved and mistreated his people. But
in a moment of fierce anger he had acted impetuously and thrown all his
advantages away. The last forty years had been spent herding the flocks in a
forgotten corner of the desert. But now he was summoned by a miraculous sign to
return to the very place he had fled, to face down the royal power in its
stronghold, and demand freedom for his people> He did not even believe
himself a fluent speaker, yet he was called to declare the impossible before a
king. Where did he find the strength? His eyes were fixed on another kingdom, a
kingdom which could never fail, whose maker and builder was the Lord.

Another time, another place, another man. This one was only
about 33, and he had already put aside all the joys of heaven to walk in the
pain and weakness of humanity. Now, in the middle of the night, he knelt in an
olive grove, and the agony of his submission was so intense that the sweat fell
from him like drops of blood. He knew what lay ahead. He knew that when he left
that garden he would be going forth to face false accusations, jeering crowds,
abandonment, torture and death. “Nevertheless,” he said, “your will be done.”
Where did he find the strength? His eyes were fixed on another kingdom which
could never fail, whose builder and maker was the Lord, and so, for the joy
that was set before him, he walked forward, with deliberate intent, into all
the agony of sin and death.

About Me

Mother of two grown up kids,and very long time married, after many years as a full-time mum, then a part-time theological student I'm now trying to be useful in my local church whilst working out what the next step is.I'm passionate about Jesus, treasure the people in my life and dream of being a preacher. I'm a would-be poet, a slightly eccentric cook, and an INFP (which must explain something).
And I'm a pickle: a weird shaped lump of something-or-other, a bit salty, a bit sweet, definitely an acquired taste, preserved by the grace of God and trying to add a bit of flavour to the blandness of modern life.